This article was taken from the November 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online.

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Whenever you see a historic building, you observe its architecture. Acoustic Archives focuses on a less tangible aspect: its sound. The team captures a place's sonic imprint and applies that profile to other audio, imparting the aural qualities of that location. Directors can overlay these profiles on dialogue to make it site-specific. Bands could then give a new feel to studio tracks. (Take U2's castle-recorded The Unforgettable Fire.)

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Archives cofounders Mesta Bish and Vito Finamore wanted a creepy vibe for an album, so they teamed up with Ryan Schimmenti and Eric Farahnai to record a closed-down insane asylum. This led to forays into other buildings, where they record tones that then get processed out to isolate the acoustics. Their secret weapon is this 3D microphone, designed by Bish and Finamore. "When people see it,"

Schimmenti says, "they're like, what kind of Ghostbusters nonsense is this?" High on their sonic wish list: the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

This article was first published in the November 2013 issue of WIRED magazine